The authoritarian left withdraws from politics: Ideological asymmetry in the relationship between authoritarianism and political engagement

In this article, we argue that authoritarianism will be associated with reduced political interest and participation to a greater extent among those who identify with the left rather than the right because left-leaning politics-which challenges the status quo-threatens more instability and flux. Using data from the United States, we provide evidence for this first hypothesis. Using multinational European data, we also provide support for a second hypothesis that this interaction would be more evident in "Westernized" contexts, where the traditional left-right difference is clearly defined, than in Eastern European countries, where its meaning is less distinct; and we conceptually replicate the authoritarianism results using a measure of support for "conservation" values favoring security, conformity, and tradition. Together, these results suggest that the lower visibility of left-wing authoritarianism relative to its counterpart on the right may be due in part to greater withdrawal from politics among left-leaning authoritarians.